New Situational Awareness System for Armored Vehicles

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Raytheon Company is developing a new technology to provide extensive situational awareness for soldiers inside windowless armored vehicles, as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Ground X-Vehicle Technologies (GXV-T) program.

David Diller, GXV-T program manager at the company: “Our team is developing a virtual experience that gives the crews greater awareness of what’s going on outside the vehicle, while also reducing their vulnerability to attack. We’re creating a three-dimensional model of the environment in real time that gives users views of their outside environment that would not normally be possible from inside the vehicle.”

The goal of GXV-T is to improve the mobility and survivability of armored vehicles without adding more armor and weight. DARPA is funding advanced technology development in four related areas: mobility enhancement, agility for survivability, crew augmentation and signature management. Raytheon BBN Technologies, a subsidary company to Raytheon, is developing crew-augmenting technologies.

According to the company’s press release, the new development uses lidar data, meaning measuring distance using laser beams, to create a 3D model of the environment, employing high-definition video to produce a detailed, natural rendering of the surroundings. Additional sensors provide the precise location of any incoming hostile fire, while blue-force position updates locate friendly forces.

Presenting all this sensor data in a natural, intuitive interface improves situational awareness while reducing the workload for the crew and allowing them to focus on the most relevant threats and challenges.